For one family, both parents serving in Afghanistan means double the anxiety

SASKATOON — Both of Mackenzie Bourque’s parents are soldiers, but she doesn’t like to talk about their job.

She was only six the first time her mother shipped out to Afghanistan. Four years later, her dad went.

She is probably still too young to fully appreciate the complexities of war, but 11-year-old Mackenzie knows a lot about the fear of staying home while her parents are off fighting.

“Because they could die,” she says simply.

“She said that I couldn’t go back unless I was sitting behind a desk,” says Mackenzie’s mother, Gwen.

Although Gwen and her husband Chris Bourque have returned safely from their tours, the war has affected their family life.

“There’s apprehension. Even though (the kids) are small children, they know what’s going on,” Chris says. “They know that mom is a soldier and they know that dad is a soldier and that’s our job, that’s our duty.”

The high school sweethearts joined the military shortly after graduation and before they got married. After their children were born, Gwen did a seven-month tour in Afghanistan, working with government aid agencies on reconstruction projects. Chris, who was deployed in Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia before joining the war in Afghanistan, worked in force protection and camp security.

“If we would have been there at the same time, (Chris) would have been my protection,” Gwen says.

Chris first deployed to Bosnia when their oldest daughter, Victoria, was only three, and before Mackenzie was born. When Gwen went to Afghanistan, Chris says it was hard to ignore the dangers she was facing — dangers he was all too familiar with. But the real shock was simply the reality of living as a single parent.

“You realize how much your spouse actually does around the home. Sometimes the laundry got piled up,” Chris laughs.

“Cleaning — that was my biggest concern,” Gwen interjects. “Everyone would always ask me, ‘What are you worried about?’ I would say, ‘That Chris is going to have a messy house and that my kids will be living in a pig sty.’”

It wasn’t until his second tour that Chris’s absence put a noticeable strain on the family. His daughters better understood what it meant to be a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan.

“(Victoria) had a hard time when he went the last time, a very hard time,” Gwen says.

There is the late-night worry and the fear, knowing that the person you love is in harm’s way. But for Gwen, there are also the little things that make it hard to stay home while your husband ships off.

“When (Chris) went away, everything in my house broke. The furnace, the water heater, my vehicle, the fridge flooded our kitchen,” Gwen says.

Mackenzie remembers when her father got home from Afghanistan, he “didn’t talk very much.” Like Gwen, he had known friends and colleagues who were killed or injured.

“You mourn, but you have to carry on,” Chris says.

The Bourque family carries on. All four of them have been back home together for nearly two years. Only now are they fully adjusting to family life.

“We are getting back into normal life again, but for so long it didn’t feel like things were that normal,” Gwen says. “I just remember I felt very removed from the whole family when I got back. It didn’t feel real.”

The spouses can take comfort in understanding what each is going through. Even if at times it is scary, on some level, that understanding is a luxury.

“I really had some days where I literally laid in bed and hid in the room and did nothing,” Gwen says. “I don’t know how other people would have handled that. (Chris) kind of hid the kids from me too so they didn’t see that.”

Unlike her older sister, Mackenzie has an interest in military life. In fact, Mackenzie says she is thinking pretty seriously about joining up once she is old enough. It’s an aspiration her parents are simultaneously proud of and cautious about.

“That was one of the reasons I went (to Afghanistan), is I wanted to show my girls that women can do these roles. I guess we won’t see for another couple of years if they got it,” Gwen says.

Gwen believes one day she will deploy again. Chris, on the other hand, isn’t so sure. Coming home just feels so right.

“Soldiers get the itch or the bug. You do a tour and come back and three or four years later you are like, ‘let’s go again.’ Maybe it’s just the pace of the operation or just the excitement. You crave it,” he says. “But at some point in your career, you say enough. It’s time to step back and let someone else continue on the fight.”

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For one family, both parents serving in Afghanistan means double the anxiety

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